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LAPD SWAT officers search students with backpacks at UCLA after a murder-suicide Wednesday morning, June 1, 2016 at UCLA left two dead, and prompted a campus-wide lockdown, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

June 1,2016. Westwood CA. Students make their way out of class rooms after the lockdown was lifted. Today at UCLA after a murder-suicide Wednesday morning at UCLA left two dead, and prompted a campus-wide lockdown, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
“At about 10 this morning, a homicide and a suicide occurred on the southside,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said in a news conference. “It appears it was entirely contained. We believe there are no suspects outstanding and no continued threat to UCLA campus. We’re in the process of releasing the campus.” (Photo by Gene Blevins/Los Angeles Daily News)

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Law enforcement evacuate students at UCLA. (Photo by Mike Goulding)

June 1,2016. Westwood CA. Students make their way out of class rooms after the lockdown was lifted. Today at UCLA after a murder-suicide Wednesday morning at UCLA left two dead, and prompted a campus-wide lockdown, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
“At about 10 this morning, a homicide and a suicide occurred on the southside,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said in a news conference. “It appears it was entirely contained. We believe there are no suspects outstanding and no continued threat to UCLA campus. We’re in the process of releasing the campus.” (Photo by Gene Blevins/Los Angeles Daily News)

June 1,2016. Westwood CA. LAPD SWAT walk among the students as they make their way out of class rooms after the lockdown was lifted. Today at UCLA after a murder-suicide Wednesday morning at UCLA left two dead, and prompted a campus-wide lockdown, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
“At about 10 this morning, a homicide and a suicide occurred on the southside,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said in a news conference. “It appears it was entirely contained. We believe there are no suspects outstanding and no continued threat to UCLA campus. We’re in the process of releasing the campus.” (Photo by Gene Blevins/Los Angeles Daily News)

It was a “Bruin Alert” that Alan Mendoza, a student at UCLA, will never forget.

Mendoza, a 20-year-old psychobiology major from Long Beach, said he had just finished class and met his girlfriend at the university’s iconic Royce Hall, when he received the alert via text message that there was a shooting on campus.

As they headed toward her dorm room, they encountered a group of first-graders on a field trip and informed the chaperone about the shooting.

“Over the speaker, they were saying ‘gunman on campus, seek shelter,’” Mendoza explained. “It was scary, but I kind of knew the best option was to be calm and not panic,” he said, adding, “We kept walking and walked into the dorms and once we got here it was just pretty much quiet.”

Stefanie Wu, a 3rd year student, was in class when the shooting occurred.

“It was very calm. Our teacher still went on teaching for the hour that we were in there,” Wu recalled. “It wasn’t too hyped up. It kept us calmer than I feel like it normally would have been.”

Wu said they then turned on the news in the classroom, and learned that someone had died. She said at that point the professor stopped lecturing.

It was also a morning like no other for UCLA Professor Mario Packazo.

He was in his office on the 7th floor of the university’s Math Sciences building.

He heard a noise in the hallway of the building, which neighbors the Engineering IV building, where the shooting occurred.

It wasn’t long after that he found himself being patted down by LAPD officers. He was then escorted down the hall with students and other professors.

“It does worry you. Especially with all those people in the building,” he said.

Rabbi Shalom Cunin, 30, of the Chabad House, which neighbors the university, witnessed the fear as about 25 students ran from the shooting to seek shelter at his Chabad.

“We took the opportunity to pray,” he said.

The rabbis then served them bagels and lox and offered comforting words.

In a press conference just after 12 p.m., Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck announced that the shooting was a murder-suicide that had left two people dead, and no additional suspect was being sought.

Brenda Gazzar is a multilingual multimedia reporter who has worked for a variety of news outlets in California and in the Middle East since 2000. She has covered a range of issues, including breaking news, immigration, law and order, race, religion and gender issues, politics, human interest stories and education. Besides the Los Angeles Daily News and its sister papers, her work has been published by Reuters, the Denver Post, Ms. Magazine, the Jerusalem Post, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, The Cairo Times and others. Brenda speaks Spanish, Hebrew and intermediate Arabic and is the recipient of national, state and regional awards, including a National Headliners Award and one from the Associated Press News Executives' Council. She holds a dual master's degree in Communications/Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Larry Altman has covered crime and court proceedings in Southern California since 1987. A graduate of Cal State Northridge, where he served as editor of the college newspaper, Altman has worked for the Daily Breeze since 1990. The Society of Professional Journalists named him a "Distinguished Journalist" in Los Angeles in 2006. Altman's work was featured twice on CBS' “48 Hours” and he appeared eight times with “Nancy Grace," who called him "dear." He has covered hundreds of homicides and many trials. Altman has crawled through a mausoleum to open a coffin, confronted husbands who killed their wives, wives who killed their husbands, and his coverage helped put a child molester and a murderer in prison. In his spare time, Altman is an avid Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers fan, is the commissioner of a Fantasy Baseball league with several other current and former newspapermen, runs a real estate empire and likes to watch old movies on TCM.